Tom Brady not retiring: selfish husband or unstoppable legend?

2022-09-10 05:09:38 By : Ms. Carol Chen

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

The 13-year marriage between legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady, 45, and supermodel Gisele Bündchen, 42, is said to be spiraling — and his un-retirement from the game is reportedly to blame.

Insiders close to the couple exclusively revealed to Page Six that the Brazilian supermodel angrily fled their compound in Tampa, Fla., for Costa Rica this week after repeated fights about Brady’s return to the field after just 40 days of retirement.

“There’s been trouble in the marriage over his decision to un-retire,” a source said. 

But should the GOAT listen to his wife and walk away from the field to focus on his family — or should the seven-time Super Bowl champ keep wowing fans in the 2022-23 regular season as the league’s oldest player?

Here, two reporters from The Post take sides in the scrimmage.

The adage “happy wife, happy life” isn’t just good for us commoners — that goes for you, too, Tom Brady. 

You sacrificed so much by giving up the game for a grand total of 40 days, while your very successful wife has ditched the spotlight to stay home with kids Benjamin Rein, 12, and Vivian Lake, 9 (Brady also has a son, John “Jack” Edward, 15, with his ex, Bridget Moynahan).

“Gisele has always been the one with the kids,” a source told Page Six. “They had agreed he would retire to focus on the family, then he changed his mind.”

He seems to be forgetting that all good things must come to an end — especially when your family is on the line.

It’s time for Brady to take a page from tennis GOAT Serena Williams, 40, who announced she’d be hanging up her racket after this year’s US Open in order to grow her brood with husband Alexis Ohanian. Oh wait, he’s a guy accustomed to depending on his wife.

The pro baller even admitted that his all-encompassing career was coming at too high of a cost in a 2020 interview with Howard Stern.  

“[My wife’s] point was, ‘Well, yeah, of course this works for you. It all works for you. But it doesn’t work for me.’”

And yet, he goes trotting off with his Tampa Bay teammates again? Not cool, my guy. 

Now it seems his spouse is giving the jock a taste of his own medicine by starring in Burberry’s latest campaign — good for her!

In her absence, Brady is left to do the heavy lifting with their children. On Monday, he shared snaps of his two youngest kids leaving the house for their first day of school on his Instagram story. 

While he doesn’t appear to mind handling daddy duties, it may be impacting his grind on the gridiron given his vague explanation last week for taking an 11-day hiatus from the Buccaneers’ pre-season training camp.

“We all have really unique challenges to our life. I’m 45 years old, man,” he said, hinting at his personal troubles. “There’s a lot of s–t going on, so just gotta figure out life the best you can. It’s a continuous process.”

Well, Brady, here’s a life hack: Take off the jersey and slip on an apron.

Game time is over. It’s husband time.

When Tom Brady announce his retirement in February, I figured, good for him. After 22 seasons, maybe the guy can finally eat a damn tomato.

Then I felt a twinge of sadness. Being similarly aged to Brady, I felt his retirement was a referendum on my own youth and the official end to Gen Xers being fit enough to don a uniform.

At a geriatric football age, Brady has not only stayed healthy but dominated the NFL, making mincemeat of defensive players young enough to have been sired by him. It’s been something to behold.

Greats like Joe Montana and Dan Marino packed it in at 38. Peyton Manning at 39. Brett Favre hung it up at 41. At 44, Brady became the oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl. At 45, he is as agile as if he had been swimming in the pool with Wilford Brimley in “Cocoon.”

We all know he lives a monastic life, abstaining from caffeine, gluten and certain veggies and sticking to a strict fitness routine with resistance bands to preserve his pliability. He is a science experiment in motion.

And how inspiring. If he could get knocked around by a bunch of 300-pound men and still win titles, what could us recreational athletes achieve in middle age and beyond?

When he announced his return only a month later, it was thrilling.

I lived in Boston in the early aughts when the entire city’s collective personality trait was hating New York sports because they didn’t have much going for their teams. And then Brady, along with the 2004 Red Sox, quickly changed Beantown’s fortunes — turning this Giants fan into a Brady hater.

When he switched his jersey to Tampa, I suddenly lost my taste for the Brady haterade and started to root for this guy because, well, no one could script such an incredible story without mixing in a dash of science fiction.

He won the Super Bowl, taking an ax to the narrative that he was only a star because he fit into Bill Belichick’s winning system. And he helped do to Tampa what he did to Boston: turn it into “Champa Bay.”

Maybe Brady’s one defect is that he can’t keep a promise to his wife, who has essentially put her career on hold to raise their children.

But Brady’s return is the league’s gain. And unless the Giants make a miraculous run at the Vince Lombardi trophy this year, I’ll be rooting for Brady to collect another ring. Let’s hope he also still has his wedding ring after his football chapter finally ends.